After a morning seeing if anywhere local (or not so local) stocked tyres in my car's size (185 60 14) to fit today, it seemed the only tyres that fitters actually stock are Wanli/Jingu/Niceride/Luckystar/Goodride/Happydrive/Hifly/Lurpak ditchfinders.

 

I wonder why this is? I know they probably make more profit from the cheaper tyres, but surely it's not good for them if the customer finds the tyres crap? 

 

Surely I can't be that far into the minority by wanting tyres that won't try to kill me in the wet? Can I? 

Surely I can't be that far into the minority by wanting tyres that won't try to kill me in the wet? Can I? 

 

Yes,

 

I suspect there is more margin in a premium tyre than an economy tyre.

 

However my experience is that the majority of road users are simply happy to keep a car road legal and commute worthy. 

Cheap next day delivery and get your Tyre Fitter to fit them for £10 a corner

The best Tyre Supplier in the country   IMHO

Job done

I never buy anywhere else!!

After a morning seeing if anywhere local (or not so local) stocked tyres in my car's size (185 60 14) to fit today, it seemed the only tyres that fitters actually stock are Wanli/Jingu/Niceride/Luckystar/Goodride/Happydrive/Hifly/Lurpak ditchfinders.

 

I wonder why this is? I know they probably make more profit from the cheaper tyres, but surely it's not good for them if the customer finds the tyres crap? 

 

Surely I can't be that far into the minority by wanting tyres that won't try to kill me in the wet? Can I? 

 

Most people simply don't give a crap as long as its road legal.

 

I bought a 1.4 MPI (afaik the slowest Fabia you can get) that had been 'upgraded' to 185 tyres from the stock 165s iirc, however even though the tyres were nearly new, the slightest provocation from the 68 raging horses made them squeal... it was bone dry. Thank god I didn't have to drive it in the wet

 

Camskill (as mentioned), mytyres, tyreleader can all supply a range of good mid range tyres from manufacturers such as Toyo, Federal, Uniroyal, Kuhmo, Vredstein or you may even find some Dunlops or Goodyear's cheap enough as they often do specials, and you can either use one of their recommended fitting stations or try your luck locally. As you're on steels there's not much chance of the fitter breaking/scratching them, so go to the grotty back street place for £5 fitting

Yes,

 

I suspect there is more margin in a premium tyre than an economy tyre.

 

However my experience is that the majority of road users are simply happy to keep a car road legal and commute worthy. 

 

When I used to work in retail, the margin was always much greater on cheaper, value brands than the premium stuff. The value stuff was far and away much cheaper to buy in, and easier to sell, even with a decent margin. I suspect this is the same for tyres. Why else would a retailer recommend them?

 

Cheap next day delivery and get your Tyre Fitter to fit them for £10 a corner

The best Tyre Supplier in the country   IMHO

Job done

I never buy anywhere else!!

 

I buy there myself occasionally, but it's no good if you've just taken on a six week contract involving a long commute starting Monday, that'll mean I'll be working all the time most tyre fitters appear to be open. I have managed to find a place that will fit me in a week on Saturday early in the morning for a reasonable price now though... It took some finding though.

To be fair though, at the moment, Camskill are a ton more expensive for the Uniroyal Rainexperts currently fitted to my car, once you add in delivery and fitting, (so not even an exotic tyre) than Hawleys in Sheffield where I've booked in. I think they may sometimes trade on the fact folks don't bother to check anywhere else presuming they're cheaper. That particular tyre has gone up by around 33% in the last six months there.

 

Ringing round and trying to find other brands to fit, thinking I'd replace both rear tyres, as the Uniroyals appeared to be rare, all places seemed to stock were the ditchfinders, with other brands taking a day or two to get in.

 

I suppose the lesson to be learned is to prepare well in advance. If I'd ordered the tyre in from somewhere ages ago, I'd have had it ready to take to a tyre fitters today.

First world problems, eh? 

And I thought it was bad here when I had difficulty getting anything except Barums locally!

When I used to work in retail, the margin was always much greater on cheaper, value brands than the premium stuff. The value stuff was far and away much cheaper to buy in, and easier to sell, even with a decent margin. I suspect this is the same for tyres. Why else would a retailer recommend them?

 

 

It's entirely product dependant.

 

Many products it is not about the price you buy in at but the price you can sell out at.  Price pressure from the glut of economy brand tyres means that I have seen Event tyres in my 225/45/17 fit online for £35.00, given that there is almost certainly a minimum cost to produce a road legal stamped and approved tyre, the potential for 50% margin on that Event tyre is pretty low, unless you think they are produced for £17.50 each.

 

Apply the same logic to a £120 tyre, 50% sales margin meaning £60.00 cost to produce almost 3.5 times more than the Events.  Entirely probable.  So if that were the maths behind it.  For every Event Tyre sold the tyre outlet makes £17.50 and the Premium makes £60.00.  So on a full set of 4 the difference is you either make £70 or £240.00 even though both are 50% margin.

 

But let's play with the figures, say the Event cost only £10.00 to produce and the Premium Brand costs £90, a highly improbably 9 times more expensive.  The Tyre Outlet still makes £5.00 more per corner selling premium brand over the event budget.

 

Now some "positoning" of tyres as Premium/Mid/Budget is marketing and sales price may not reflect cost price, but in the fight to the bottom that is budget tyres I believe there is far less in it for the garage than selling some "added value" premiums.

 

As for why they do it, sadly many businesses in general can be described as "lazy" and "greedy".  They sell the budgets and stock the budgets because trying to upsell to premium tyres is hard work and often people just want the bare minimum.  I suspect they see the real formula for success as only stocking the cheapest budgets and trying to get the most excessive mark up on them, knowing that a large number of people will fold and buy them just because they are in stock and they have just been advised that they have two bald tyres and will not get an MOT until solved.

 

      all of the above is pur IMO stuff

After a morning seeing if anywhere local (or not so local) stocked tyres in my car's size (185 60 14) to fit today, it seemed the only tyres that fitters actually stock are Wanli/Jingu/Niceride/Luckystar/Goodride/Happydrive/Hifly/Lurpak ditchfinders.

 

I wonder why this is? I know they probably make more profit from the cheaper tyres, but surely it's not good for them if the customer finds the tyres crap? 

 

Surely I can't be that far into the minority by wanting tyres that won't try to kill me in the wet? Can I? 

Who did you try I would be very surprised if you could not get a branded tyre around here with so many tyre shops around.

 

Saying that its not as popular a size as it used to be.

 

Try Dexel Tyres on Staniforth road their website says they have plenty of good quality tyre available.

Edited 27 September, 201411 yr by ruffday

Who did you try I would be very surprised if you could not get a branded tyre around here with so many tyre shops around.

 

Saying that its not as popular a size as it used to be.

 

Try Dexel Tyres on Staniforth road their website says they have plenty of good quality tyre available.

 

I tried plenty of places, including Dexel. All could order me a decent tyre, or fit me a ditchmaster aquaplaner tyre that they had in stock.

It could be down to the size I suppose. Hadn't thought of that.

I agree with the post title. It's easy to buy teflon tyres off the shelf, but it looks like if you want something half decent you have to wait for it to be ordered in.

 

Annoying, but I would rather wait, after all there ain't much rubber on the road between you and death, so may as well get the best.

Its been a long time since I bought from a brick and mortar tyre place. I just have a selection of garages around which are happy to fit any tyres I buy online.

I would put it down to the fact that tyres in this size are usually rquired for older models of cars therefore worth less and therefore the owners in general are unwilling to spend on them.

Problem is, Joe public just don't care and only want cheap £ which is why that's all that gets stocked.

 

Of course they then crash, and blame the car, which then gets subjected to more safety requirements for the new model, taking more feel out of the drive and more ability away from the driver, making it less obvious how crap the tyres are, meaning the next time they crash due to ditch finders they blame the car etc etc.